


The Goldilocks Principle

by kangeiko



Category: The Grand Tour (TV) RPF, Top Gear (UK) RPF
Genre: CHM Secret Santa, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-03-04 13:34:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13365780
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kangeiko/pseuds/kangeiko
Summary: There’s nothing more terrifying than a Secret Santa. Oh, no, wait, hold on: there is.





	The Goldilocks Principle

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sistersophie](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sistersophie/gifts).



> Many thanks to karanguni and wyvernchick for their invaluable help and support, I couldn't have done it without you.

“This way is better,” James said firmly. “This way, there will be _no_  repeats of last year.” 

Jeremy had the good grace to wince a little at that. Last year there had been no Secret Santa, no upper limit on spending, and no… well, very little sense, if he was being honest. He’d found himself moping about in early December, and - in a fit of _I can buy my friends things if I want to, and anyway I’m no longer married so who will tell me no_  - had bought Richard a clapped-out old banger in need of restoration and James a new piano.

Neither, as it transpired, had been appropriate gifts for friends and colleagues.

“It’s not that we’re not grateful,” James had said, clearing his throat and looking uncomfortable. “It’s just that… it’s very hard to judge scale.” He looked down at the cashmere sweater he’d bought for Jeremy. 

“But it’s a _lovely_  sweater,” Jeremy had protested.

Richard had made an exasperated sound. “Jez, mate, look. We love you, we do. But this…” He’d looked away for moment and then gone on determinedly. “It’s too much.”

Even now, the memory of it made Jeremy flush in shame. It’s just… the boys - _his_  boys - had walked away from the BBC for him. Had walked away from everything, really. It was sheer luck that things had worked out. Wasn’t he entitled to thank them for having faith in him? Wasn’t it the right thing - the _friendly_  thing - to do?

All he’d wanted was to buy them things they’d like; things that would show them how much what they’d done meant to him. And after that nightmare year, he’d looked back thought on each birthday and Christmas and thought, _that was a terrible gift. I could do better than that. They deserve better._  And so things had… escalated.

_Too much,_  Richard had said. 

Jeremy couldn’t even get gift-giving right.

“You’re right, this makes more sense,” he said quietly. “It’ll be more… proportionate.”

Richard cleared his throat. “But does it have to be handmade?” he asked a little plaintively. “James, mate, wouldn’t it be better if we just stuck to the £50 limit and got each other gifts below that, but, you know, ones we bought?”  Clearly, Jeremy was not the only one wondering if he’d be presenting his recipient with a complete disaster of a gift this year.

James had that look in his eyes which meant he was going to  be immovable on this. “No. Handmade gifts only. Secret Santa rules apply.” 

James didn't appear to have a particular reason for stipulating that the gifts had to be handmade, but they could tell that he was going to be stubborn about it. After a moment thinking it over, Jeremy smiled and toasted him with his pint, ignoring Richard’s muttered, “oh God, kill me now.” Wasn’t the fact that James wanted this enough? And wasn’t their loyalty and pig-headedness what Jeremy had been trying to thank them for in the first place?

This was going to be the best Christmas _ever_. He’d make James happy by doing this, and he was also going to give his boys the most amazing, the most memorable, the _best_  gifts… in the wo-

_Handmade._  The best _handmade_  gifts.

Abruptly, Jeremy thought back to exactly how successful he’d been with the kit car. And the art project. And the meat blender. 

His heart sinking, he took another sip of his beer and thought about what he could make that wouldn’t catch on fire.

*

Jeremy ended up with Richard from the draw, which made him breathe a little sigh of relief. His only ideas for James would have involved cobbling together a beer-brewing kit, and he wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to swing that under £50, not if he was going to have to sort out substitutes for the kettle and the keg and everything from scratch.

With Richard… Well, Jeremy did have  _ one  _ idea which might not result in a trip to A&E, but it was going to require some work and quite a bit of help from someone who knew what they were doing...

“No, you - no, you’re holding it wrong.”

“How can I _possibly_  be holding it wrong, Em? You said there was no wrong way to hold it!” Jeremy's hands were cramping from trying to position them the right way to do this knitting thing, which seemed a lot like torture to him. 

“Well, you’ve found one,” Emily snapped. Jeremy watched as she frowned, looking down at her notes; the FaceTime screen was filled for a brief moment with just her hair. She looked back up almost immediately and gave him a quick smile.“OK, so… the yarn is over the needle - _over_  the needle, dad, you hold it in place with your forefinger, and then pull, and then you do the - yup, that’s it.”

Slowly and laboriously, Jeremy managed to cast on two stitches. At the rate he was going, he’d have the sweater ready in time for… well, it was 3 November now, so if he kept up this frenetic pace, worked all weekend, and…

Never. He was going to die of old age before he finished the fucking thing.

“Is there a loom or something I can borrow?” he asked desperately.

“For _knitting_?” Emily raised an eyebrow. “Anyway, dad, you haven’t said what this is for. Is there a rush on this thing or something?”

His shoulders slumped. “It’s, uh, the boys and I are doing Secret Santa. It has to be home-made, though, and under fifty quid. Andy thought it’d be funny to do a big reveal of the gifts at the Christmas show, so we’re sort of committed now. Anyway, I figured I could knit Richard a sweater…”

Emily’s eyebrows disappeared into her hairline. “A _sweater_? Why didn't you say that to start with? Dad, I love you, but you managed two stitches in an hour! There is no way you could knit an entire sweater in that time.”

“Yeah,” sighed Jeremy sadly. This was a disaster. 

She frowned at him. “Dad…”

It was the look she always got whenever he tried to do something nice for his boys and it backfired. Honestly, he was more than a little depressed that it had happened enough times for her to have a specific _look_  that he could recognise.

“It’s fine, Em. I’ll just -” He could possibly saw together some sort of tunic instead. It wouldn’t be as Christmassy, but...

“You’ll knit him socks,” she said firmly.

Jeremy gaped at her. “Socks?”

“Socks.”

Socks. He could possibly manage socks in the time available.

Well. Maybe _a_  sock.

*

“No, you’re right, this is absolutely typical of your blue period. I can see the light and colour at play.”

Richard gave Mindy a dirty look over his shoulder. “You are really not helping, you know that?” He’d asked her over for encouragement - and a sense check - and she’d spent the entire time laughing at him. This was not how ex-wives were supposed to behave.

She laughed and hugged him. “James is going to love it.” She smiled down at Richard’s reference photo. “How on earth did you get the dogs to all stand still for long enough?” Their littlest puppy - bundled up in the manger - had never looked cuter.

“The girls bribed them with treats.” Richard paused, looking back at the painting. “You really think he’ll like it?”

*

“This was a stupid idea,” James said, staring down at the piano and his scribbled manuscript. He closed his fist and very gently pressed down on the keys, wincing at the discordant note that sounded. He should have just gone with his first instinct and asked for everyone to stick to gifts of alcohol. You couldn’t go wrong with alcohol.

Well, technically he _was_  making some alcohol: he was infusing some gin for Jeremy. But he'd wanted to do something a little more… theatrical, as well. And because of that stupid ambition, he’d not only convinced Jeremy and Richard to make something themselves for the challenge, but also somehow managed to get roped into presenting their gifts on the show. Nothing like a little _literal_  performance anxiety to enhance the gift-giving experience. If prizes were being given out for idiocy… 

James sighed. “They’ll both hate me.”

“They really won’t,” Sarah said, her eyes on the work spread out in front of her. “You’re a delight in every respect, brother dear.”

“They’ve probably managed to chop off a limb or two already.” 

“Well,” Sarah said, closing her laptop decisively, “I won't deny that. But I still think it’s a good idea, and you should definitely follow through.”

James mulled this over, chewing on his lower lip. “They haven’t said…” he started hesitantly. “I mean. I thought… I hoped…” He was going out on a bit of a limb, hoping that he’d been reading Jeremy’s increasingly erratic gift-giving tendencies correctly. And Richard’s… Richardness. They'd been through so much these last few years, from leaving Top Gear, to the divorces, to the endless tabloid nightmares, to one health scare after another. James had spent too long at various hospitals visiting the two of them, his heart clenching a little more each time he saw them in a hospital gown. 

And they were all still alive, still together, and not a single one of them had been on a date for the whole bloody year. Didn't that mean something? 

Didn't that mean that the lads, _his_  lads, were… well… _his_? 

He stared blankly down at the piano keys, his vision blurring. Oh God, what if he’d misread things?

Sarah came up behind him, hugging James firmly and shoving him over with her hip in one smooth movement. “I’ve never seen any men more useless at expressing their feelings than those two, even if what they think is so obvious you could see it from space. Do the Secret Santa thing, and then use your flipping _words_ , James. Bloody Nora, you know neither of them is going to be able to say it - it’s on you if you want this to happen.” She pressed a kiss to his ear. “Now make some room and show me what you’ve been working on.”

*

“I think it needs more blue,” Willow said critically. She looked back at Richard. “So, are you going to tell them?”

“This is absolutely not a conversation that we’re going to be having, pickle,” Richard said, hesitating over his paint options. He added cerulean, gold and alabaster together and smeared them with his palette knife until he had a bright enough shade. “Let’s respect some boundaries, okay?”

His (lack of a) dating life was absolutely not something that was ever going to be a topic of conversation he would ever have with his daughters. Especially since he was starting to think that he'd misread everything. Surely, if something was going to happen, it would have already happened? Jeremy wasn't exactly known for his subtlety, and James could be remarkably forthright on what he wanted. If neither had said anything so far...

Willow was silent for a long moment. “I think puppy Jesus should have a chew toy,” she said finally. She gave her father a sideways look. “If you don’t tell them, I think mum is going to.”

Richard dropped the palette.

*

“Oh, for _God’s sake_!” Jeremy shouted, throwing down the glue gun. “How can I be so completely useless at everything!”

There was hot glue everywhere. Instead of neat, regular stripes, the tinsel had stuck to the socks in clumps and crumples, trailing tendrils of it floating in the wind from the nearby fan. There was a singed hole on the toe of one sock from where Jeremy had carelessly put the glue gun down, let hot glue drip onto the fabric, and then tried to separate out the resultant mess. Bits of fluff and dog hair had also  got onto the socks, so that they more resembled a mop than an item of clothing. 

“This is the worst present in the history of presents,” Jeremy said, staring down at the mess on his kitchen table. How the hell was he supposed to win anyone over with this? 

The only answer was the smell of singed wool.

*

Jeremy had spent the evening in a decidedly non-festive mood, growing more and more antsy as the gift segment approached. It was just a pair of socks. That was neither theatrical nor especially impressive.

Oh, God, this was going to be a disaster.

Andy was waving at him from behind an unimpressed-looking Brian. Oh, right - he was supposed to be presenting a show, here. “So, ladies and gentlemen, we have decided to begin a new Grand Tour tradition this year - Secret Santa!”

On cue, James piped up. “It’s not a new tradition.”

Jeremy sighed dramatically and looked heavenward. “You see what I have to deal with here?” 

“I’m just saying,” James settled more comfortably in his chair, smiling through his scripted lines, “that it’s not new. We did it a few years ago.”

They had, of course, back when Top Gear had first been starting off; the whole crew had been part of it.  Back then, it had been easy to just buy someone some cufflinks because they were a friend, or a colleague, and to forget about it all until the following year. Back then, Jeremy had looked at James and Richard as just his mates, and not as -

He swallowed around the lump in his throat. “Yes, James, we did, but it wasn’t for Grand Tour. In fact, it wasn’t for TV at all.”

James blinked back at him innocently. “I’m just saying -”

Jeremy couldn’t remember his next lines. Well, it didn’t matter anyway - he just had to finish the bridge and get them to the reveals. “Nope! I am right on this, and you will sit there and be wrong in your wrongness while we do the gifts.” Jeremy gestured towards the far stage, where the three presents had been set up behind heavy velvet curtains. “Behold! Our homemade, and yet under fifty quid, Secret Santa gifts!”

At Brian’s nod, the velvet curtains were pulled away.

Jeremy cleared his throat. “So who did what, then?” he asked after a moment, staring critically between the dozen-strong, honest-to-God Christmas choir and the framed nativity oil painting. The tinsel-covered socks were pinned up on a noticeboard beside the painting. They looked… small.

“Shall I go first?” James asked. He rubbed his hands down the side of his jeans, looking a little nervous.

Jeremy made _by all means_  gesture with his hands and stepped back. He saw Andy murmuring into Brian’s ear on the other side of the camera. He hadn’t known about the choir, obviously, as that area of the stage had been curtained off and they hadn’t run through the segment in rehearsals to preserve the element of surprise, but clearly James had run it past Andy and Brian beforehand.

After a moment’s hesitation, James produced a conductor’s baton from seemingly nowhere, and harrumphed in front of the choir. “Ready?”

After a moment, two dozen professional singers launched into... Well.

_Oh Jeremy, oh Jeremy,_  
_Your Merc is bloody awful._  
_At Turnham Green, you always stall;_  
_Through Cotswolds sun, and London snow,_  
_Oh Jeremy, dear Jeremy,_  
_Why don’t you buy a Vauxhall?_

_Oh Jeremy, oh Jeremy,_  
_Why did you buy a GT?_  
_It drinks so much, that car’s a lush;_  
_Never reliable in a rush,_  
_Oh Jeremy, dear Jeremy,_  
_Why don’t you buy an Audi?_

_Oh Jeremy, oh Jeremy,_  
_A Lancia? A Beta?_  
_Your car's caught fire at least twice,_  
_Sometimes ‘pretty’ won’t suffice -_  
_Oh Jeremy, dear Jeremy,_  
_Next time just buy a Tesla!_

Glitter and confetti was promptly dumped on their heads by the stagehands above as the audience started hollering their approval. Jeremy turned, speechless, to the grinning James. “Merry Christmas, Jezza,” James said, laughing, almost shouting to be heard above the applause. He had a hand-labelled bottle in his hand, which he offered to Jeremy. “That’s, er, your actual present. I infused some gin for you, it’s ginger and lemongrass. But I couldn’t ignore inspiration when it struck…” He looked thoroughly unrepentant.

Jeremy looked down at the bottle in his hand, and then back up at the carol singers who had just finished the song that James had written for him. For _him_. There was glitter on James’s face and on Richard’s, smudged across their cheeks in little flecks of light, and they were laughing. Richard turned to murmur something to James, too quietly for Jeremy to hear, and Jeremy felt his heart sink at James’s expression. 

His boys belonged to someone, alright. _Each other._   They complemented each other too well. They _fit_. Both ambitious… and not, as it turned out, rubbish. 

And as for Jeremy… Clearly, he was rubbish at this gift-giving malarkey. His presents last year had been _too much_ , but here Richard and James were with their bloody production number - singing, dancing, artwork - the whole nine yards. Shouting their togetherness from the rooftops. 

There wasn't space for Jeremy. There never had been. 

This had been a mistake. And now, the whole bloody world was going to see. 

He managed to force a smile onto his face somehow, swallowing past the lump in his throat. “A Tesla, James? Really?”

Shrugging happily, James waved at Richard. “I’m just saying, it probably wouldn’t have done any worse than the Lancia. Anyway, Richard! Your turn.”

“Well, I feel like my gift is a bit of a let-down by comparison, mate! Should have probably saved the glitter and sing-along for the end.” But Richard was smiling despite his words, pleased for James at having his gift be such a hit, but obviously proud of his own efforts. He did _ta da!_  hands in front of his - frankly, quite magnificent - oil painting of an all-puppy nativity. “I wanted to remind you of the true meaning of Christmas, James,” he said significantly, and pointed to where the puppy Jesus was playing with a chew toy. “ _Food._ ”

James inspected the painting in silence from several feet away and then again with his face practically pressed against the canvas. 

Richard watched him a little anxiously. The audience was absolutely silent. “Well?”

“Richard, mate,” James said slowly, “this is the nicest gift I’ve ever received.”

Richard’s face split into a grin. “Really?”

“Really,” James nodded. 

_Oh, just snog and be done with it,_  Jeremy thought miserably. He looked down at his feet. _It was a bit of a lost cause, anyway. What were you thinking you were going to do? Buy their love with presents?_  It was bloody obvious to anyone with eyes that ship had already well and truly sailed, and without him onboard. He managed to paste a smile on his face with an effort. He wasn't going to be churlish. He was going to be happy for them. He _was_. “Is it my turn, then?”

After Richard’s nod, Jeremy turned to the noticeboard and unpinned the socks. A bit of tinsel detached from one and floated down as he offered them to Richard. “Merry Christmas,” he muttered.

There was a long silence. “Oh,” Richard said eventually. “Well, thanks, Jezza, they’re certainly… Christmassy.”

Jeremy’s heart sank.

Over to the side, Andy was making the _cut_ gesture. Jeremy hurriedly turned to the audience. “And on that terrible disappointment...”

*

When they got back to their trailer, Jeremy watched as Richard continued to turn the socks over and over in his hands, looking bewildered. 

“Jezza, mate,” he said eventually. “Not that I’m complaining - I mean, I know we sort of sprung the Secret Santa thing on you, and you’ve been snowed under with work -” His fingers found one of the holes in the socks, poorly-darned, and his pinkie went through it. He swallowed. “But, um, is everything ok?”

Jeremy scowled. “Well, I’m sorry, I know ‘ambitious but stupid’ is still our unofficial motto, but I’m a slow knitter. I wanted to make a sweater, but I needed a little more time.” He looked away. “Sorry, mate,” he muttered. “It was going okay until the tinsel, I promise.”

There was a short silence. 

“Jeremy,” Richard said slowly, his eyes wide. “Did - did you knit these yourself?”

Jeremy could feel a headache coming on. “I just said so, didn’t I? The gifts were supposed to be homemade!” Why was he shouting? Christ, he was screwing this up. 

“Yeah, but…” Richard and James looked at each other. 

James bit his lip. “Jez, I dressed up _O Tannenbaum_ ; Richard, I’m guessing, did not make either his paint or his canvas -”

“It’s not like I _made_  the yarn,” Jeremy said irritably. “It’s shop-bought. I just knitted the damn things.”

Richard and James exchanged another look. “Jez,” James said gently, “is there… something wrong?”

“What...?”

“Only…” James cleared his throat. “Only, you’ve been buying us all these gifts. And then there was the holiday you all insisted we take together. And now you’re - well, you’re _knitting_ , Jezza.” 

Richard was chewing his bottom lip. “You’d tell us, right? If something was wrong? I mean, the doctors, they gave you the all-clear, right?”

Oh.

_Oh._

“I’m not dying, you idiots!” Jeremy waved a hand impatiently. “If I were dying I wouldn’t have taken two bloody years to do something about this, and now it's too bloody late, as per fucking usual!” Perfect. He was now yelling at them as if his ineptitude was _their_  fault. Oh, Emily was going to _kill_ him. 

James blinked at him. “Do something about  _ what _ ?”

“This!” Jeremy waved a hand again, scrubbing through the glitter on his face and gesturing wildly at Richard’s painting in the corner. “This, _this_ , sticking with me when everything went to shit, spending time with me when I was a sad old sack, listening to me whine all through my divorce, writing me a _fucking_ _song_  -” he took a deep breath. He should leave it there, he should just thank them, and he should just leave them to be happy together, without him. 

He pressed his lips together, fighting the humiliating sting in his eyes. “Look, I don't know whether you’re together yet or not, but I was stupid enough to think that you might want, might think, _maybe_  - and I know that I don't _fit_ , not like the two of you, but -”

“Jezza, mate,” Richard asked quietly, his eyes wide. “What are you asking?”

James just stared at him, expressionless.

Jeremy gritted his teeth. “Look, I just - oh, for the love of God, d’you want to date me or not?” He squeezed his eyes shut, feeling his face flood with colour. Well. That could have been… a little more tactful. Subtle. _Suave._

Oh, who was he kidding. “Just - because if you  _ do _ , I’m saying that I’m interested. In you.”

Both Richard and James looked poleaxed. 

Richard swallowed. “Er. Which of us?”

Jeremy waved a hand. “Both of you. _Obviously._ ”

“Obviously,” James echoed. He looked rather pale. “And you - you’re saying it. Out loud. That you want to date us.”

They hadn't said no. Not yet. 

Despite himself, despite knowing better, Jeremy felt his stomach clench pleasantly. “I mean,” he said nervously, “if, ah. If I didn't misread it. If, er, you're not always committed elsewhere. And, er, if you were thinking of doing something like that with me.” He bit his lip. “I know that sometimes I can be a bit too much -”

Richard and James shared another look. This one seemed... different. 

James looked back at Jeremy and smiled. “Jez,” he said, and held out his hand. “You're not ‘too much’ for us. You never were.” He looked at Richard again, who nodded, a grin splitting his face. “In fact, I might even say that you're _just right_.”

“Yeah?” Jeremy asked, his voice small. His hand gripped James’s tightly. He couldn't look away. They weren’t saying no. _They weren’t saying no_.

“Yeah,” Richard nodded firmly, and stepped forward. 

They crowded into him, warm and happy and tipsy from their celebratory drinks. _His boys_. A familiar hand tangled in his hair and brought his head down, stroking fingers across the nape of his neck.

Jeremy turned his face blindly into the kiss, closing his eyes at the taste of glitter and champagne. 

*

fin


End file.
